Sunday, November 6, 2011

Significance.

I found this while rummaging around. It's just as true today as the moment my fingers touched keys nearly four years ago...perhaps, more so.

June 13, 2008 I packed up my classroom a couple of weeks ago. I know I told you I was quitting but I never really explained how or why. To be honest, I didn't want to and haven't even brought my boxes home yet.
Part of me is really excited to know I'm not leaving because I didn't like it or because I wasn't good at it but the rest of me is really, really sad because I'm going to miss the 986 kids I saw every day, the 40 kids who wrote stories and read books with me, and my friends. Not to mention, I...have...no...idea what's about to happen next.
I quit because I love someone more than I love my job.
I told Ben it didn't matter where we lived because I can teach anywhere and it's true, I can. It's just hard for me to imagine myself somewhere when I don't know where "anywhere" is.
...and now I'm packing up my house so other people will be able to imagine themselves in it and want to buy it. That's hard. The thought of putting my life into tubs scares me a little. I know it's silly but part of me feels a significance in packing it away. I hold the drawings Ruth taped to the wall near my bed and my desk and I don't want to put them away. I'm afraid I'll forget, that something will get lost, that somehow I won't remember...
And I'm sad even though I've never been so happy.

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Wisdom

What lies behind you and what lies in front of you, palesin comparison to what lies inside of you.Ralph Waldo EmersonThe world breaks everyone, and afterward, some are strong at the brokenplaces.Ernest Hemingway Promise me you’ll always remember: You’re braver than you believe, and stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think. Christopher Robin to Pooh (by A. A. Milne) Although the world is full of suffering, it is also full of the overcoming of it. Helen KellerIt is not the mountain we conquer but ourselves. Sir Edmund HillaryOur greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.ConfuciusIn the midst of winter, I finally learnedthere was in mean invincible summer.Albert Camus I like living. I have sometimesbeen wildly, despairingly, acutely miserable, racked with sorrow, but through it all I still know quite certainly that just to be alive is a grand thing. Agatha Christie We rely upon the poets, the philosophers and the playwrights to articulate what most of us can only feel, in joy or sorrow. They illuminate the thoughts for which we only grope. They give us the strength and balm we cannot find in ourselves. Whenever I find my courage wavering I rush to them. They give me the wisdom of acceptance, the will and resilience to push on. Helen Hayes

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Journal Notes

I like Scrabble. I feel more at home in my white converse tennis shoes
than the town I grew up in and I know my sister can't stand them (I'm
okay with that). I like pencils more than pens. I carry my journal with
me everywhere. There’s a dictionary in the floorboard of my car…
Sometimes I think I write more than I talk. TV is okay but I’d rather go
to the movies. Driving around with no place to go is my idea of fun. I
like to be with people but I don't like to do stuff. Sitting on my
couch, or your couch, or the coffee shop’s couch… that’s enough. I read
every day. I like my water room temperature but not my soda. Soda needs
lots of ice. I like to eat cornflakes for dinner and pizza for
breakfast. I collected rocks when I was a kid. My favorite flowers are
the ones given to me by my daughter. Someday I'd like a house with a red
door. I always know what to say but I never know how to say it. I like
the smell of brand new crayons. I love the smell of a rainy day.
I smile.
I twirl my hair.
I'm in love.
Simple.
This is who I am.